Ralph Nader hits Democrats on minimum wage

Ralph Nader is mad as hell that Congress hasn’t raised the minimum wage.

The persistent past-presidential candidate on Thursday ripped into congressional Democrats’ attempts to “play politics” on raising the wage to $10.10 an hour by not putting more muscle behind an obscure procedural tactic that could force a vote on raising the wage.

Text Size

-

+

reset

In a call to a reporter, Nader slammed the House Democrats’ stalled discharge petition — an effort that needs about two dozen GOP signatures to receive a vote in the House. Nader said House Democrats aren’t serious about hammering the GOP for a vote — and his aides have produced reams of data set to be released over Labor Day weekend that identifies about 50 House Republicans they believe could support raising the wage to $10.10 an hour.

“It’s not like they’ve got 20 sign-ons right, it’s over 190. Do they want it or do they just want to use it as a campaign hammer against the Republicans?” Nader said of House Democrats’ discharge petition.

A vote, he added, “could happen any day if the Democrats muscled it and the unions put it all over the TV in the districts.”

But Nader only has so much pull with congressional Democrats, who face steep odds in convincing Republicans to publicly rebuke House Speaker John Boehner and sign a discharge petition and who already have held a failed Senate vote. But Nader said that Democrats could focus their attacks on blue- and purple-state Republicans and members of the GOP who fought food stamp cuts to “shame” them into publicly supporting a higher wage.

Nader didn’t just hit House Democrats — but also questioned the enthusiasm that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) have for raising the minimum wage in the Senate, where all Republicans, save Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, voted in April to block a gradual increase to $10.10 an hour.

Unlike almost everyone on Capitol Hill, Nader said, “It’s very easy for Reid to get this through.” He said Democratic leaders should force Republicans to perform long talking filibusters on the Senate floor and explain their opposition to raising the stagnant $7.25 hourly wage. The GOP’s arguments against raising the wage are rooted in a Congressional Budget Office report that estimated raising the wage to $10.10 an hour would threaten hundreds of thousands of jobs.

“We know how they can crush the Republicans, we’ve known that for years,” Nader said. “There’s only one thing left and that’s public shame. You can’t even deal with guilt with these people.”

Nader did praise Senate Democrats for holding firm on $10.10 rather than bargaining with moderate Republicans like Sen. Susan Collins of Maine on a lower hourly rate. And there’s a strong likelihood that Nader’s hopes for a revival of Democrats’ minimum wage focus will come true: Sources say that Senate Democrats are still planning to force another vote on the $10.10 minimum wage bill in September.

But Nader said he’s worried that Democrats won’t play hard enough on the wage — and will throw their political muscle behind reauthorizing the relatively obscure Export-Import Bank instead.

“The reason why they want Ex-Im, is because they can cash in on it,” Nader said. “They’re running on [the minimum wage] but they don’t mean it.”

Nader unleashed a March broadside on Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) for not building up a sufficient power base ahead of a potential presidential aide — leading a Sanders aide to conclude that Nader “no longer has much influence on Capitol Hill.” The reception for Nader’s minimum wage marks was similar.

“[Minimum] wage is a key part of our Middle Class Jumpstart agenda that EVERY SINGLE House Dem is out talking about during August. It’s in our economic agenda. We’re hitting it constantly. Senate is hitting it too,” a House Democratic aide said in an email on Friday. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about per usual.”

Nader also saved plenty of his ire for a media that he said is ignoring Congress’ failure to raise the wage.